Two black hands behind the death of online games: hackers and servers

Recently, hear more play in doing a Chinese network game death file of the topic, I saw the content of the manuscript in advance, review the past development of Chinese online games 10 years of history, every year there are a lot of games out, and every year there are a lot of games completely disappear.　　As a worker who has been in the game industry for many years, seeing this topic, I can't help thinking about the reasons why Chinese online games are so much dead, first of all, I think of the two behind them: black and hacker. Our story starts with a web game. As the first Java engine based on the development of 2.5D graphics MMORPG Web game, Chengdu Hansen developed the "Qingcheng" in October 2009 after the official operation, was immediately popular with many players, however, in the three months before the game operation, although the user registration and revenue scores are good,　　But it still failed to meet the expectations of Hansen and the investment side of Pine capital.　　All this is related to the impact of the attack on the "Qingcheng" against hackers. August 2009, Chengdu Hansen found that in a forum someone is selling "Qingcheng" source code. As the investigation unfolds, more and more clues are pointing to a June employee Liu, Hansen immediately on September 10, 2009 to Chengdu High-tech District Public Security Bureau report, September 17, 2009, Liu in the deal with the buyer was caught red-handed, police immediately sealed the Liu exist "Qingcheng" source code of the computer　　And bring the suspect and the evidence back to the Public security Bureau for questioning.　　Although the code has been recovered, the fallout from Liu's online game-source code continues. The first is the idea of some people playing the game under development. August, there are hackers to invade Hansen's website, steal the first time to delete the "Qingcheng" version of the client and server-side programs and some of the tools have been compiled programs, and online to thousands of yuan for the low-cost sale, hit Hanson a time difference: Although outsiders use this information can not be updated on the game version,　　Can not continue to be formally developed, but when the early game players could not distinguish between robes and the difference between the time, through high off the treasure, high experience and other means to attract players, in one or two months quickly recover costs. With the official operation of the "Qingcheng", the market began to appear many of the Web site of Qingcheng, up to more than 100. Hansen has taken two steps to treat a Web site that has sprung up overnight. On the one hand, Hansen accelerated the development of the game, adding more new elements and content in the game, so that users can easily feel the difference between a genuine game and a copy.　　By November, following the new version, on the content has been very far from the original and genuine; Hansen, on the other hand, by strengthening security measures, with IDC and other ways to reduce the living space, currently, the number of less than 30, and few people are playing. From the Baidu Index (index.baidu.com) to the "take" the attention of the chart also can seeThe situation of the development of the servers. Since October 2009, netizens began to search on Baidu, which is in line with the launch of the Qing, in November, users of the "play" concern gradually increased to the December basic stability of around 900, the peak of the search in the end of January, on the "　　The daily search volume broke through 1200, and after entering March, the search for the "servers" gradually slipped to about 600, also with the game in the suppression of the gradual contraction of the situation coincide. After 2009 years of hacking, the impact of hackers, in 2010, Hansen began to drive the development of the fast lane, and Hansen's story is only a number of game companies and hackers, a microcosm of the battle. [Page] from the "legend" of the gray industry from the Baidu Index to the "illicit" word of the correlation, can also see the concern of the Internet users: the highest number of search is the "legend", followed by the "Magic Field", "Tianlong Eight", "miracle", "Blood Rivers and lakes", "World of Warcraft", "Journey",　　Are the most popular online games.　　is not a good game, this has become a common business operators. In China's development, "legend" occupies an important historical position.　　Not only is it the first commercial online game to be interested in, to this day, netizens still have a higher interest in the legend than any other game, although the Internet operators are also saying, "Now do not make money", but the "legend" is still the largest number of the most well-known servers. 2001, Chen Tianqiao Bite, with the last 300,000 dollars from the South Korean developers bought the "legend" (also known as "Legend 2", "Blood Legend") the right to operate and formal commercial operations, the price of 35 yuan per month. This was the highest price in the market, sweeping the Chinese online games market, creating a Chinese undertaking "legend."　　2005, the grand announcement "legend" free operation, this move in addition to because after 4 years of operation, "legend" has entered the recession factor, free of the impact of the "legend" is also one of the reasons. The legend was first seen in the year 02.　　The disclosure of the legendary server-side source code facilitates the assumptions, it began to spread rapidly throughout the country, and by 03, the national operation of the "legend" server servers reached thousands, in the following two years, the legendary servers to develop at an alarming rate, every day hundreds of new district open area. Unlike the grand time billing, the legend is a business model of "charging by props". It is said that in 2003, Chen with the largest "legend" of the provider "Doodle" had a private meeting, when Chen prepared to use 4 million yuan to buy the value of the company only 1 million yuan, but was "toot" refused. He advised Chen to learn the business model, Chen Tianqiao naturally did not take this advice to heart, because in his opinion, "Shanda now business modelThe type is already mature and does not need to be changed. But only two years later, Chen will have to make new choices.　　Even before the decision was made free, the royal executive and the servers, including Tang June, had "learned", and the information from the servers had made the determination to be free, and most of China's online games today had adopted the business model of charging for props.　　On the Internet, a wide variety of servers began to appear. And the rise of private computer has also bred a lot of related network companies, in the recent relevant departments to investigate and deal with many of them, including in the form of companies in the business operators, which also marked a clear business has become an explicit division of labor and organization of the industry. If from the education of Chinese online game market users, it does not small credit. But on another point of view, the music industry suffered from the free online download, the film industry's experience of free video online playback expatiating, damage the interests of game developers and manufacturers, so that manufacturers do not want to invest resources for independent research and development, the overall health of the industry's destruction is enormous. [Page] Hackers who eat game rice are not all hackers destructive. Many hackers are actually technology enthusiasts, they delight in discovering and patching loopholes in the system, adhering to the principle of not maliciously destroying any system, not modifying any documents, not destroying or modifying the host of government agencies, but as gunpowder was used more in war as a weapon of murder,　　Hacker technology has also become a lot of ulterior motives for the use of their own private tools, such practices have long deviated from the original "hacker" nature. Behind the proliferation of a game, hackers can be said to be "work." For example, there is a hacker's shadow behind the popularity of the legend. September 2002, the game's early English version of the server program source code leaks and into the United Kingdom, the UK's largest two games website "Dragon Station" and "Phoenix Station" opened free download channels, the end of September 2002, the source code quickly into the, The folk Masters unite together, quickly Chinese the game.　　To 2002 National Day period, "Legend" "Folk Han" basically completed. Who leaked the source code, grand, Actoz, wemade three parties have been arguing, but always have not come up with an answer. However, due to improper prevention measures, so that hackers steal the program source code, and ultimately lead to Grand, Actoz, wemade three sides of the loss and contradictions is an indisputable fact.　　In addition to the legend, the game history of many of the masterpiece, such as "DOOM III", "Half Life", "Thor Hammer", "Hell's Gate: London", "World of Warcraft", and so on, have been caused by hackers and other causes of the source code was stolen information. In a sense, it is the hacker's presence that spawned the game. The impact of this hacker attack on game developers is enormous. But to steal away a much-watched game source code, only need superb technology and experience of highLevel hackers can do, for the level is not enough to steal the code of the small and medium-sized hackers, they still have a wide range of profit path. In the online gaming industry, the hacker's cooperation is more embodied in the use of Trojans to steal game accounts and passwords, looted virtual property, to provide advertising, to combat other providers and so on, hackers and their respective roles, both division of work, and mutual attack competition,　　Formed a special theft-sale-promotion-operation of the gray industrial chain. The grey industry chain of online games there is a special group in hackers-selling guns. These people do not directly attack other people's computers, but to create hacker tools and sell to downstream buyers, through the Trojan horse program to successfully sneak into others computer, steal bank account and the higher level of QQ numbers, network game accounts, such as virtual property, such as the famous "Panda incense" virus is such a tool.　　With these tools, downstream buyers do not need to know too much hacker knowledge to be able to steal valuable information. Also in the gaming industry, many private servers provide users with no experience in the construction of the "one-stop service", known as the provision of game server-side erection, server rental, login, website and advertising agent a series of services, ordinary players do not have to master the site construction, data structure, network marketing and other knowledge,　　Only pay a certain fee to "have their own servers." It is worth noting that the quality of this "one-stop" service is often mixed, and there are even frauds in the guise of buying and selling games. These servers are generally online advertising contact customers, through QQ and customer contact, the ultimate goal is to persuade customers to remit money.　　They usually agree to the customer's request before they remit the money. After the money to the account, even if the customer found that the provided products do not reach the standards of online advertising and then negotiate with the provider, they will be able to push the push, or directly to the client into the blacklist, no longer contact. In fact, those servers that operate normally also attract players in exaggerated language. For example, the "Qingcheng" mentioned above has promised many new features before it is opened, such as the impending siege, the impending pet ... Wait, then wait a few weeks, when this is closed, these promises are "going to open". [Page] for the servers, they often provide customers with the same set of procedures and products, and how to stand out from the homogeneous competition, which is the most considered problem for the servers.　　For the promotion of clients, they will often advertise on some of the web sites, such as the HAO123: for those who want to play, they only need to remember a Web site, they can choose various versions of the game. The spread of this dedicated web site with the legend is almost simultaneous. In the course of development and growth, these websites also playA little credit.　　The business opportunities that are involved in this are also attracting the attention of hackers. It has been said that all of China's cyber propaganda stations have been controlled by hackers. It is true that we cannot prove it, but it is an indisputable fact that hackers use various kinds of attacks, such as DDoS and CC, to hire a large amount of bandwidth and chickens to attack their operators and to gain benefits from advertising websites.　　On the one hand, hackers can coerce websites by attacking ad sites, at a very low price or free access to the right to publish the ads, and then resell the ads to the operators to obtain the difference, or threats to the loopholes, the collection of "protection fees", or to help the operators to attack other competitors, up and down. In addition, many of the "hackers" who think the technology is passable have not satisfied the indirect control of the upstream and downstream instead, it began to extend its position up and down in the industrial chain, while hackers were also using hacker technology to attack other rivals for their own profit, in the grey industry chain of online games,　　The boundaries between hackers and servers are beginning to blur. In fact, in the current network game grey industry chain there are widespread vicious competition, not only affect the interests of players, but also the entire network game industry. If not in the last year, two of the attacks between the two countries triggered the "5.19" six provinces in southern China Network, these hidden in the relationships behind the online game is not so quickly exposed.　　From this point of view, "5.19" break the network incident is accidental is inevitable, to the online gaming industry, there are many worthy of reflection. Magic a ruler, the road and hackers on the impact of online games is huge.　　Yu, a former grand CEO, said at the 2009 China Gaming Industry Annual meeting that the overall size of China's online gaming industry was around 24 billion yuan, and that the damage to the entire industry by hackers was expected to exceed 10 billion yuan. In the face of such a huge loss, the net swims enterprise naturally will not ignore. However, private servers and hackers tend to be in the dark, and the tactic of guerrilla warfare with game companies and related departments also increases the difficulty of the attack. In the "Legend" at the beginning of the flood, the grand side shot out of the 8 million reward, while they had to secretly in the amnesty, and for those high to high, stays hackers, but also let the game manufacturers are quite a headache.　　At the same time, because of the lack of corresponding legal measures, the encirclement and suppression of hackers was deadlocked. The Devil is a ruler, the road is a tall. Although the impact of hackers on the gaming industry is difficult to eliminate in a short time, but it is not completely no way, at least through the following aspects to carry out: first, strengthen the secrecy measures for game manufacturers, strengthen the secrecy measures, fundamentally reduce the hacker to steal source code and program risk is the simplest and easiest to think of methods. In general, game manufacturers will take a closed network development, but in such as demonstrations, public testing and other processes also exist certain risks, on the other hand, in a number of gamesThere is also the problem of insider leaking in the code leakage event, which is worth the attention of the game manufacturer. In addition, game manufacturers can also take some technical settings to reduce the risk of the servers.　　For example, the giant's masterpiece "Journey Online" also appeared source code leaks, however, because the "journey online" is the Linux server architecture, decided that the server architecture must also be a Linux system, and the system is not widely used in the market, but also to some extent, will limit the proliferation of servers.　　Second, the training of internal strength in the era of single game, perhaps a lot of players will have this experience: because a level has not been played, so the use of the game modifier to modify, one hit the checkpoint, at the same time, while cheering, but feel lost the fun of the game, the heart a little disappointed feeling.　　The biggest difference between the online game and the network is the use of "high experience, high off the treasure" and other means of publicity, for those who do not have enough time to play online games, but want to experience the game quickly, it is indeed a temptation, but for the player is lost the fun of the game. For players, it is often the fun of playing a game and the amount of time it takes to balance it. If the game is good to play, the player is naturally willing to spend more time playing, and if the play is bad, the player may be more inclined to be addicted to it. In addition, for the development of strong game developers, you can also through the continuous updating of the game, add new content, pull away from the remote. For game makers. Relative to the strengthening of security measures, it is more important to practice their own internal strength, in order to be in the fight against hackers and private servers have more contingency means.　　[Page] third, to enhance the player's guidance in addition to fundamentally cut off the source of the program leakage, but also to enhance the player's guidance and education, so that its understanding of the harm, the initiative not to play, do "throttling." The biggest risk is that the illicit is not formal. A lot of servers will be with a Trojan horse or someone else hanging a trojan, steal other valuable information on your computer--in other words, you play a secret, and there is just another trojan, your account will be OK, but, your computer QQ account password,　　Other games account password and other information is not easy to say. To strengthen the guidance of the players, so that the players to establish a healthy game concept is not easy, it needs the vast number of game manufacturers and even the regulatory departments and other relevant agencies of the long-term publicity and efforts.　　Predictably, with the gradual maturation of netizens in China, this work will be easier to implement. Iv. improvement of macro-environment and legal environment in the past, the embarrassment of game makers in the fight against hackers was that some laws and regulations could not keep up with their need to crack down on servers and hackers, or even "backfire". An example is a few years ago, the introduction of online games to prevent addiction system, regular game manufacturers introduced the game are used in this system, users in the continuous game after a few hours will be forced offline, and this time the"24 Hours Online" slogan, virtually many users to the servers.　　There is no doubt that online games to prevent addiction to the design of the system is good, but out of the actual, but will play just the opposite effect. The healthy development of network game can not be separated from the improvement of macro environment and legal environment. With the development of online games, the relevant departments have taken some positive measures, such as the seventh amendment of the Penal Code adopted in February 2009, the illegal invasion of other people's computers and other hacker acts have been clearly punished by the Penal Code regulations, the number of thieves will undoubtedly be severely sanctioned by the law. The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture also said that the fund will be set up by the financial funds to help enterprises in the intellectual property rights infringed on the maintenance of their right, such initiative can be said on the one hand to meet the needs of enterprises, but also for the government of the industry's healthy and orderly development of control played a role However, to better combat hackers, policymakers should reasonably listen to the views of all parties and formulate laws and regulations that meet the requirements of the game manufacturer in order to promote the healthy development of online games.